the other side of the coin has an ugly face as well

I've said a few times that the extreme on either side of an issue is a bad thing. Here's proof that right wing exteremists are just as vitriolic, nasty and senseless as those on the far left.

I'm not posting this just to gratuitously show you a hate site. I link it to show that yes, there are idiots and hateful bastards on either side of the coin, and I am not afraid to point them both out.

Holy Sh*t. On some level, I know that there are "people" like this out there...but every now & then I come across a site like that and am forcibly reminded of their idiocy, hatred, and complete and total denial of reality and reason. Mindsets like that scare me, because they are 100% beyond reaching or convincing of reality -- they are warped, vicious, evil creatures.

What a fraud! I followed the link looking for a "right-wing hate site" and was directed to Stormfront. Children, children, why do you think the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS' PARTY WAS "right wing?" Please read the G-ddamned literature. The Nazis made coalition with right-wingers for a short period during the Machtgreifung, but they were never a right-wing movement or party. The HorstWessellied should have told you this as should have the identities of the anti-Nazi resistance.

e: "I decided to surf the rest of their site... I'm a masochist."
Sheesh. Sorry I linked it, I wouldn't deliberately cause even a masochist that kind of pain!

Lou: Unfortunately, marxist types went with the left and nazi types went with the right in the US. If you reduced the US to an official two-party state tomorrow, and required everyone to vote, the marxists would vote Democrat and the white supremacists would vote Republican. Neither party, IMO, spends enough time publicly denouncing the agenda of their nasty little 'buddies'.

You think that the Democratic Underground
is as representative of the left as Stormfront is of the right? In one sense I guess I should be pleased that you think that the DU is such a beyond the pale kook site. On the other hand, Stormfront is treated like a bunch of lunatics by the right while the DU is linked by lots of popular left-wing websites. Furthermore, I've NEVER seen any left-wing website treat the DU the way the right treats Stormfront (as a worthless idiot page visited by people who are absolutely not representative of the GOP). I don't see how anyone can even compare those pages...

The right/left debate has always been posited wrongly. Both sides are looked at as alternate paths to a quasi-utopian future (probably something StarTreky--replicators, holodecks, spaceflight, and sex with aliens)

They are not.

The left has defined itself visibly since its inception by 'virtue' of the various governments its ideology has spawned. All of them, without exception, lead to state control of the private sector, a control that eventually needs to be expressed as totalitarianism.

This need stems from the fact that while leftist theory often sounds 'good' and 'fair' it is contrary to human nature save in the most limited of circumstances.

The Right, however often it is talked about has never really been defined. Captalism, the most usual defining characteristic, can exist--and does--even within leftist tyrannies.

The only real defining concept that puts the 'right' at odds woth the left is a steady relaxation of state control. This relaxation is expressed in the US Constituion in the Bill of Rights. It is expressed as various 'freedoms'.

Freedom of speech, of expression, from unlawful search and seizure, from being forced to incriminate oneself, etc.

Thus, in a sense, the right can be defined, by its actions as freedom.

Which points us to a more realistic dichotomy, Left=totalitarianism/Right=freedom

This structuring is more in line with events as they actually exist, rather than the oft-heard leftist mantra as each tyrannies is exposed and discarded, which always tells us that the perpertrators 'just weren't doing it right'. This structuring would take all those socialistic ideologies, from nazism to anarchic sydicalism, and lump them into the totalitarianistic wastes of time--and life that they actually are.